An interview with Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists and author of How the Mind Works.



Pinker explains the mind by "reverse-engineering" it — figuring out what natural selection designed it to accomplish in the environment in which we evolved. The mind, he writes, is a system of "organs of computation" that allowed our ancestors to understand and outsmart objects, animals, plants, and each other.



How the Mind Works explains many of the imponderables of everyday life. Why does a face look more attractive with makeup? How do "Magic-Eye" 3-D stereograms work? Why do we feel that a run of heads makes the coin more likely to land tails? Why is the thought of eating worms disgusting? Why do men challenge each other to duels and murder their ex-wives? Why are children bratty? Why do fools fall in love? Why are we soothed by paintings and music? And why do puzzles like the self, free will, and consciousness leave us dizzy?



Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.



Pinker will speak on the Evolution of the Mind on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at UCI’s Beckman Canter as part of The National Academy of Sciences conference.



Recorded December 8, 2009